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Series of First Volumes ^ Number Three 



Orioles ^ Blackbirds 



ORIOLES &> 
BLACKBIRDS 

HI SIMONS 




CHICAGO ->VILL RANSOM - MCMXXII 



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For reproduction herein of poems previously pub- 
lished in their pages ^grateful acknowledgement is due 
the editors of Poetry : A Magazine of Verse, The 
Liberator, The Wave, The Pagan, Unity, The 
Plowshare, Good Morning, The Modern Review, 
All 's Well, and Caprice. 






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Copyright ig22 by Will Ransom 



JAN -2 ?3 

)ClA6l)0b47 



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h,-9 



\ 



Epistle Dedicatory 

Dear Bernadine — 

None- you disliked is among these. 

Hi 



CONTENTS 




Three Crimson Tulips 




Shermerville Road 


9 


Three Lines 


10 


Remembering One Night 


II 


Cubes and Colored Curves 




Portrait of an Old Roue 


15 


Open Window 


16 


Decoration: Ships Going Out 


'7 


Autumn^ Lake Bemidji 


18 


October Sunset 


19 


Green 


20 


Sleep 


22 


Waters 


23 


Berries 


24 


Scintillations 


25 


Moonset 


26 


My Mind 


27 


OJ Helen 


28 


Eternally 


29 


Going to Sleep 


30 


Tree 


3^ 


The Versifier 


32 


Holiday Air 


33 


Lovers in the Bark 


34 


Male Remark to the Spring Wind 


35^ 



The Black Uniform 



Chant of the Shoveler 


39 


Singers 


42 


Nightfall in Prison 


46 


A Tree by the Road 


47 


A Rose 


48 


The Star 


50 


Dust in the Road 


51 


Taps 


52 


There are Moments of Release 


53 


There will be Days of Love Released 


54 


Near Freedom 


56 


En Route 




The Pebble and the Wave 


59 


When the Moon Pales 


60 


Mother and Daughter 


61 


Legend 


62 


The Moustache 


64 


To a Timid Maiden 


65 


The Fable of the Hog 


66 


Conscription 


67 


The Fireman 


68 


En Route 


70 



Three Crimson Tulips 



Shermerville Road 

Leaves live by night 
more delicately than they 
can live when light 
of day 

effaces subtleties. 
Elm-leaves on an immobile tree — 
beside a road that no unhatted fool but me 
would plod, alone, 
past moonset — 
flitter and swarm, 
like bees, 
and drone. 
Yet- 
rather the warm, 
unworded flow of air you breathe 
I 'd hear beside me, 
than murmuring hives of leaves 
upon a tree. 



Three Lines 

Moon, is it just because so woman-pale and 

woman-slim you hover 
Over the orchard while the robust sun sways 

lakeward into cover, 
That merely glance of you impels to thoughts 

of Bernadine, my lover? 



lO 



Remembering One Night 

I would divest you of soft things, 
Unswathe you of the grey and faint-pink 

swathings 
In which you 're wound, 
Wherewith you *re bound. 

I would twine curled brown leaves into your hair 
And girdle you with moss. 
I would sing to your naked dancing on a 

moon-blue hill of sand. 



II 



Cubes &f Colored Curves 



Portrait of an Old Roue 

The seeds of his sin 

Thrust tiny red roots 

Among the cell-crevices of his face. 

Now their minute purple tendrils 

Trace, on his cheeks and nose, 

Vine-patterns as intricately beautiful 

As his fastidious iniquities. 



15 



open Window 

That the night may pass with beauty, 

Leave the white bed forsaken; 

Come in your slender nudity 

And watch with me the slow stars carve 

Their fret of silver arcs on indigo: 

Oh! tranquilize your passion, 

That the night may pass with beauty. 



i6 



Decoration: Ships Going Out 

Slow shuttles weave — 

weave into the night — 

weave on warp of sky-blue, cloud- white — 

weave heavy yarn of purple ship-smoke: 

strands of sky-blue, 

cloud-white wisps 

skeins of mulberry ship-smoke weave 

heliotrope horizon. 

Sea-fingers spin — 
spin blue water into green — 
gold-brown out of green: 
slow-spinning sea-fingers 
draw threads from sky, 
threads from shore-shadows — 
spin grape-color and silver 
out of sky and shore-shadows. 

Slender sea-fingers spin green and burn orange, 

silver and purple together. 

Slow shuttles weave mulberry ship-smoke 

into a heliotrope horizon — 

weave into night. 



17 



Autumn^ Lake Bemidji 

No more, in the cedar-swamp, 

The red chevrons on the blackbird's wing 

Are wind-swayed up and down 

In unison with the highbush-cranberry clusters, 

Scarlet with frost-bite. 

With many an affrighted signal-call 

The mottle-bosomed yellow-hammer 

Has fled the dusty jackpine copse. 

Now a slate-colored heron 

Flaps out of the sallow sedges 

And steers southward 

Over the grey waves and the broken brown reeds, 

Trailing its legs like the rudder of a canoe. 



i8 



October Sunset 

Clouds like swans 
with orchid-colored plumes 
glide upon jade water: 
magenta-bellied gulls — 
gold wings, flamingo-tipped - 
hover in cold purple heights. 



19 



Green 

Field-green, 

Indigo blended with a little canary yellow; 

Blue-green 

Like the lush leaves of the marigold; 

Broad level meadow of sprouting wheat 

Intense green 

\Vith a shimmering sheen. 

Like a velvet portierre 

In a walnut-raftered room. 

Tree-green, 

Cobalt-blue wedded to maize yellow 

Then sprinkled with honey-powder; 

Sunny-green 

Like morning light on a great water; 

Sex-green, 

Yellow pollen bursting from the soft womb of 

the pod — 
Breast- buds of a passionate virgin 
Eae:er for the press of a mature athletic man. 



20 



Bud-green, 

Drops of light blue blurred into a matt of 

water-color yellow; 
April green 
Of first buds flowering on the boughs of poplar 

trees; 
Faint yellow-green, 
The single fringe of trees along the curving 

shore 
Making delicate traceries 
Against the mists of the river 
Like an embroidered sylvan scene 
In old, old lace. 



21 



Sleep 

Thoughts flare and flicker in my mind 
Like a host of little candles in a great dark 

chamber . . . 
Now some unseen one enters 
And snufFs out the flames, 
One by one . . . 



22 



Waters 

Out of the yellow-tamarack morass 
The olive-colored water of the river 
Flows into the round basin of the lake 
Tawny muscles of a sunburnt arm 
Pressing against the resilience 
Of a white breast. 



23 



Berries 

Midsummer in the North-country 
Parched bushes in the stumpy fields where 

cool forests were 
And, under the shady leaves of a low shrub, 
Blueberries, 

Like clusters of little blue moons 
Under the foliage of night. 



24 



Scintillations 

The moon drips a purple oil 

Upon the undulating surface of the lake. 

Out from the tremulous, olive-drab shadow of 

the pier, 
Darts a green-backed water beetle; 
It cuts a zig-zag lightning track across the 

lambent phosphorescence. 
Then vanishes into the rolling black waste . . 
So desire comes into her eyes, and is gone. 



^ 



Moonset 

All the long evening 

The hot yellow moon 

Kept slipping toward the house-tops 

Slipping, slipping, slipping — 

Until, when a faraway churchbell 

Struck just once, 

It fell into a tall black chimney. 

Then a wind came out of the west 

And blew all the heat away. 



26 



My Mind 

An indigent old woman 
Fingers trinkets and remnants 
Over a bargain-counter 
And then moves on 
Without purchasing. 



27 



0/ Helen 

Come, amorous thoughts! 

Now that the straight, sharp-angled 

imperatives of work are laid aside. 
Fill my mind with visions of her, 
Like little golden goddesses 
Gleaming all adown a long black corridor! 
Occupy every niche of my soul 
With her fine-metalled image. 
That I may adulate, unreservedly. 



28 



Eternally 

Timorously wavering, 

An ephemeral splendour like a butterfly's 

wing in sunlight, 
The little yellow flame creeps down the taper 
Into the deep cup of the candlestick . . . 
It is blue like a breath of noon-cloud . . . 
It is a red cinder in the black of a forest camp. 

Die, small light! Vanish utterly: 

I shall remain in this night-dungeoned corner. 

Loving her. 



29 



Going to Sleep 

Lovely thoughts came, silent, through the night 

And led me on from scene to happy scene 

Until at last they drew their glowing tapering arms 

From the numbing clasp of my mind, 

And abandoned me 

To the passionless placidity of Sleep, 

Dull spouse, and swollen-eyed, of Weariness. 



30 



Tree 

There is a lemon-colored elmtree near the road. 
Autumn has yellowed its periphery of leaves 
But the inner foliage remains untouched by frost, 
Pea-green. 



31 



The Versifier 

I take words — 

Thin, delicately moulded strips of speech — 

And join them end to end 

Cunningly, so that the pattern is unbroken. 

And so make a frame 

For an exquisite thought. 



32 



Holiday Air 

He stands on the cold curb, whistling. 
Pizzicato puffs of blue breath 
Issue on the slow winter wind — 
Dots and dashes of melody 
On an invisible piano-roll. 



ZZ 



Lovers in the Dark 

A spark blown from a cigarette 

Fades into ash 

Like a flake of snow 

That melts before alighting . , 

They kiss. 



34 



Male Remark to the Spring Wind 

Silk legs — 

because of their accustomedness, 

thirty above zero or below — 

do not disturb. 

But, oh! 

why orange bloomers, 

why the obscene press 

of skirts on thighs, 

why garters — 

intriguing rags: 

are they merely to torment 

the effort to be continent? 



35 



The Black Uniform 



Chant of the Shovekr 

I am the shoveler. 

I'm the young fellow who stands all day 

On the feeding-platform in the brick plant 

Pushing great shovelsful of clay 

Into the champing maw of the crushing-machine, 

With rhythmic vigorous slide and pull of muscles 

Shoving chunks of hard dirt into the machine. 

/ was the sleek young gentleman of the cities y 
Inhabitant of drives and boulevards^ 
Frequenter of tearooms where rich women went 

to smoke their Russian cigarets uncensored^ 
Of suave hotels ^ of cafes where the laughers and 

the dancers played: 
I was the well-dressed young professional man^ 
Flipping a slim slick walking-cane^ 
Twisting waxed ends of a little brown mustache^ 
Hatted and gloved and gaiter ed to the letter of 

style and taste. 



39 



See me now — 

As the shoveler! 

Stooping to the rough task, clad in boots and 

overalls, 
Dirty overalls, bagging over the gumboot 

tops, sagging loosely over my hips. 
Arms bare to the shoulders, overshirt cast aside. 
Bare-headed, bound with a blue handkerchief 

like a fillet 
To hold my straggling hair and stay the 

trickling sweat. 
See me now — 
Working callouses on my palms and the edges 

of my fingers, 
Joyous in the strain and pull of muscles, 
In the swing and toss of the shovel. 

/ was the prison greenhorn; 

I was the man who quailed as they marched 

me to worky 
And cringed as a weakling 
In the first days of my toil. 



40 



Watch me now— 

I am the shovel er! 

I am the fellow who does more work than any 

of my comrades, 
Scorning the barrow-pushers who lag in their 

weakness. 
1 am the fellow who feeds the roaring machine 
With back bended for hours at a stretch. 
Scooping up the clay, bare-handed — 
With legs broadly braced and flexing, 
Shovel shooting out straight from the shoulders — 
Then flinging it into the hopper with a 

vigorous controlled jerk. 
I am the deep-breathing laborer. 
Digesting big meals of coarse food, 
Tanning, strengthening, growing, toughening 

every body-fibre. 
I am the man who shouts in exultation of the toil. 
I am the fellow who loudly sings above the 

din and the dust 
To the accompaniment of the clanging 

thousand-pound crushing- wheels ! 
I am the shoveler! 
I am the lover of work! 



41 



Singers 

Soldiers sing and prisoners sing 

And I think the sweetest songs I Ve ever heard 

are those sung in camps and prisons 

and the places of the oppressed 
And I say the common music of their songs is 

more stirring, more inspiring, than any 

I Ve heard in churches. 

Quarantine on the barracks . . . 

One red coal of sunset burning in an ash-grey 

sky that envelopes wooded hills — heaps 

of black cinders: 
Dark outside; dusk within — 
Only the scarlet glow from a huge open stove. 
And on the bunks lying, close together, arms 

around each other, 
Soldiers, boyish soldiers, looking into the 

ruddy blast of the fire, and singing — 
Singing H^hen It's Apple Blossom Time in 

Normandy y Annie Laurie^ and The 

Trail of the Lonesome Pine. 



42 



And at last, late in the night, one lad 
Singing for the others, / Love You Truly ^ 

Truly y Dear — 
Tears sparkling on the faces in the 

emberglow . . . 
Lonely soldiers, singing, in the night. 

Three-day blizzard careening down the 

Missouri Valley — 
Lashing snow and malicious cold into the 

prison quarries: 
Even the guards retreat . . . 
Into the tin-roofed shack of rough plank they 

go, prisoners and sentries together. 
And there, crowding on the dirty benches 

around the little stove, they sit all day, 

singing- 
Singing There's a Long, Long Trail 

A-Windingy Over There, and other 

songs of their comrades in the trenches. 
Prisoners singing in the shack all the howling 

day . . . 



43 



Outside you could have heard their manly 
voices rising in full chords when the 
blizzard lulled . . . 

Winter night in the prison . . . 

Down to the locked-cell basement 

Shuffles Eleven-seven-forty-eight: 

A colored boy — an eight-year man — 

Shuffles down after his twelve hours on the gang. 

Is locked in his cell, and lies there singing — 

Singing darky blues — 

0, take me backy sweet wo-o-man; 

0, try me one mo' time. 
Ah know Ah done yo dirty ^ 

But 'twant no hangin crime. 

Singing blues in a mournful soprano moan 
Quavering down the half-lit basement corridor. 

There's a "wobbly" in the hole: 

He "bucked" today — refused to work: 

Fourteen days in solitaire . . . 



44 



Two stories above the basement where he lies 
His comrades gather in an open cell and stand 

singing— 
Singing wobbly songs, songs of the reds, The 

Marseillaise, The Internationale — 
Singing into the ventilator that carries the 

song to the hole: 

Then raise the scarlet standard high! 
Beneath its folds we ^11 live and die. 
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer , 
We 'II keep the Red Flag flying here! — 

Prisoners singing hymns of liberty 
That resound through air-shafts into every 
wing of the prison. 

Songs of freedom 

Songs of love 

Songs of prisoners and soldiers . . . 

And I say that young men who are pent up 

and oppressed with yearning 
Are the best of all singers. 



45 



Nightfall in Prison 

When the velvet folds of the twilight-curtain 

descend 
On the gold-and-pink embellishments of day, 
And in town the westward-looking cottages — 
Yellow, green and blue and white — 
Stand in the dimming rays of sunset; 
When in the wild the purple pools of shadow 
Over-rise their rugged shores 
And flow and flood with dewy dusk 
The field, the grove, the hill — 
Think then 
Of a single tinted feather from the pinion of 

day's flight 
Fluttering over a distant hill, 
Clutched at, in its fall, from a grated window; 
And of cells within 
Where shadows of bars lie like dead days in 

the tombs of time 
Till darkness falls, in silent heavy-heaping clods, 
Burying all. 



46 



A Tree by the Road 

The hawthorne tree 

On the roadside near the prison 

Is like a pensive lady of gentle birth; 

And in the evening 

When we march in from work 

Its dark leaves, lighter green at the ends- 

Like the tips of slender, soft fingers — 

Reach down 

As if offering caresses. 

Languidly, 

Knowing they cannot touch her lover. 



47 



A Rosd 

Pink petals of rose: 

Bloom. 

You will share this prison-cell with me, 

You in your tincup of water in the corner, 

I in my narrow cot. 

You were sent hither unwillingly — 

And so was I — 

— for dear love's sake 

— and I, for liberty's. 

Perfumed petals of rose: 

Bloom. 

Suffuse your fragrance through the corridor. 

Your sweetness 

Will be a sign of beauty in this bitter place- 

And so will I, 

And so will I. 



48 



Pale petals of rose: 

Fade; 

But you shall never die: 

In my heart 

I will bear the loveliness of you always. 

Perhaps some 

Will cherish the fragrance that is in the depth 

of me. 
In beauty 

You will be immortal, 
And so will I, 
O! so may I! 

Ah, petals of rose: 

You are gone! 

Gone from the prison-cell. 

Passed from the earth, as I shall pass. 

Your time was brief: 

How brief is mine! 



49 



The Star 

When the "screws" had made their last round 
And the lights in the cells were out, 
I arose and peered out of the window. 
And just over the edge of the prison-wall 
I saw a tiny, twinkling, yellow star, 
Furtively winking at me — 
Like the eye of the Infinite — 
Mischievously happy 
Because it had slipped me a bit of joy 
Over the wall, from "the outside." 



50 



Dust in the Road 

The dust 

Is a yellow-grey veil 

Over the limbs of the wind. 

And the little breeze dons it 

That her fleet litheness 

And the whirling torsions of her sprite's form 

May be apparent 

As she gaily runs down the road 

To greet us. 



51 



Taps 

Out of the night 

Up from the serene valley of the Missouri 

Over the free forested Kansas hills 

Come notes of a bugle — 

Mincing, silver-slippered steps of music. 



52 



There are Moments of Release 

There are moments of release from this 

imprisonment: 
Sometimes, while marching to the quarries 

where we work, 
I have a feeling of freedom from the sentries 

and the gang. 
As if alone plunging into the orange vortex of 

the winter dawn. 

There are moments of tranquillity in slavery: 
Sometimes, while working on the rock-ledge, 
I become serene and sure under the glow of 

sunset. 
Imagining me couched 
On the green valley-floor outside the walls 
Where shadows from the crest of the quarry 

dance 
Like blue fountains. 



S3 



There Will Be Days of Love Released 

O, there will be days of love released 
And red kisses passed in the light of the morning 
And walks on the yellow dunes, white limbs 
gleaming in the sunlight . . . 

Who will greet me at The Dawn — 

Who will there be to take my hand when the 

gates swing out — 
Who will be my companion in the brave 

journey down the free paths of the world? 

For us there will be the tough joy of the 

great strife 
And the conscience that millions make the 

forward stride in unison with us 
And meaningful handclasps with many 

comrades in thronged thoroughfares. 

Closest of comrades, who will you be — and do 

you yearn for me as I do for you — 
And will you be young and beautiful — and 

will you be gay and strong — 
And will you be eager for the toil of struggle — 

the interludes of love by dunes and on 

wooded hills? 



54 



Then I call to you, I bid you have courage, 
And I bid you prepare for the journey of love 

and contest 
And I urge you, make ready, as I now 

prepare, for the signal of endless 

adventures. 

For there will be no end — 
There will be no tranquil ceasing of the strife — ■ 
There will be no seclusion ever from the many, 
the many of our generation who press 
about us, press forward with us. 

But there will be days of love released 
And comings close to each other in the 

glorious thick of things 
Aye, and intense satisfactions in the nights 

that are noisy and dark with struggle. 



55 



Near Freedom 

Night fades: 

Cloud-murk dissolves, 

The dim stars reappear, 

Now the sky is pallid grey — 

And now a tint of red flows in 

Like blood returning to the lips of one a-swoon, 

The miracle of morn impends — 

Day, that was dead, re-lives. 

I have walked the night through sturdily. 
Nor have I flinched at stumbling. 
Nor have I faltered, nor cried out, 
Nor turned aside from hideous shapes. 
All but done is the journey through the dark 
And I who set gaily forth at dusk press on, 
With neither bitterness nor daunt, 
Eager to greet The Dawn. 



56 



Rn Route 



The Pebble and the Wave 

A Dance Theme 

The little agate pebble 

Has been on the yellow sands 

For long — oh, ever so long. 

And the blue white-feathered wave 

On the roof of the great green sea 

Has been yearning for it — and yearning. 

Often — oh, often — the turquoise wavelet 

Has leaped upon the amber sands toward the 

agate pebble. 
Flinging out its sun-flashing ribbons. 
Like rainbow-scaled nets, 
Striving to lap it up. 
To lave it all about with fluid caress. 
And sometime, when the tide surges, 
The turquoise wave on the emerald sea 
Will enfold, overwhelm, embrace the small 

stone 
And bear it ofl^ to its lair in the sea-depths, 
Swirling and swirling, 
Interwrapped, over-rolling, 
Down to the oozy green caverns, 
Forever. 



59 



When the Moon Pales 

and the Daylight Whitens the Shadow-caves 

Wherein Love Lies 

Nereid of the river*s ripples, 
While I sought amid the sedges 
For a reed-lute for my song, 
Why did you 'rise from the lilies ? 
Every wand that waved and whispered, 
Straight I seized upon to pluck it. 
Seemed invested of your graces. 
Seemed your swaying, slender person. 
When I moved away, rejecting, 
Formed anew, you followed after: 
As a dragon-fly you darted. 
Settled on my bosom's whiteness; 
Sweetly murmured with your wings, 
Like a perfumed lady fanning — 
Then you stung me into passion! . . . 
Lilith-like, you faded from me; 
Faded, too, my melody; 
Faded all except the wavelets' 
Languorous monotony. 



60 



Mother and 'Daughter 

White— 

Or perhaps blue; not too lake-deep nor yet 

too thin like summer-noon horizons — 
Mauve in which the blue-white smoke of 

autumn twilight streams in errant 

waftures. 

Pale pink 

Shell-like, transparent, 

As a fragrant fragile old rose-jar that my 

mother received from her mother and 

the mothers before her. 

These two, blending, 

Mantle around me like a rare scarf of spider- 
gauze aged in the purple recesses of 
some Japanese temple 

And dyed by water-color magenta. 



6i 



Legend 

She whom the genii guard and groom to 
become the priestess of their 
enchantments 

Is the sacred child of the sultan. 

Wherefore she sits alone 

In the great chamber in the minaret tower of 
the palace. 

And the walls are yellow like the sun- 
showered sands of the desert 

And the ceiling is blue like the sky. 

There is a heap of rugs upon which — 

Embanked with silken cushions of the color of 
many peacock plumes — 

Is the wise maiden, 

The diminutive temple of her divine spirit 
hung with veils. 

Blue-green like skeins of moonlight. 



62 



She sits in solitary quietude 

And her brown eyes are half shut 

As she listens to inaudible whispers from 

invisible presences. 
But once — it was when the honey-sap of the 

myrtle suffused sweet incense through 

the night — 
She opened her eyes and smiled upon me, 
And then she arose 
And led me down from the tower, out through 

the court, 
Into the Garden of the Soul's Delight. 



63 



The Moustache 

Here I have been standing on the street-curb 

for a half-hour, 
Listening to your monotonous small-talk. 
And you have been a little flattered by my 

seeming interest — 
Unsuspecting that not one of your words has 

reached my mind 
But that I have been thrilled 
By watching the sunlight 
Glint through your baby-blue eyes, 
And your fox-red moustache. 



64 



To a Timid Maiden 

Very beautiful creature 

With eyes as modest as the wild faun's are 

reputed to be — 
You will learn, when you are older, 
That possession of virginity 
Is like having in an electrically lighted house 
One of those old-fashioned, kerosene parlor-lamps 
With a voluminous pink-glass globe: 
After you have guarded it for years 
Against romping children and other household 

perils. 
Suddenly, some day, you will ask: 
"Well, what good is the old thing, anyway? 
Why have I kept it so long?" 



65 



The Fable of the Hog 
That Desired to be Slaughtered 

I wandered into the shade of an effluvious 

pigstye 
In the rear of an odoriferous packing plant 
And leaned there, 
Watching a conscientious Italian husband and 

a young negro 
Drive a large herd of hogs into the 

slaughtering-house. 
Then, after a time, I strolled on to the far end 

of the pigstye 
And saw there a hog that had got left behind 

the others. 
The hog was grunting and squealing most 

distressfully 
And was trying frantically to get through the 

gate 
And scamper along with the others, 
To be slaughtered. 

Upon witnessing which, I turned away 
To consider man 
And the well-known **social instinct." 



66 



Conscription 

She took his soul when it was young 

To be her own. 

She held him close 

For she was old and passion-wise. 

But when he grew he found another love; 

And she was young and dazzling-fair, 

And love for her was an intrepid thing: 

Not fully realized lust, 

But passion tempered with a tenderness 

and faith. 
But she who was old and passion-wise 

held him close; 
With many a brutal lure and constant 

cruel compulsion, 
She made him victim to the madness 

of her lust; 
With bleeding fingers, tearing teeth, 
She clutched him jealously — 
Until, at last, worn of her own insanity, 
She sank to death; 
Then he, with discolored flesh and 

running wounds. 
Went to his pure, bright love 
Who, though she loved him, suffered. 



67 



The Fireman: Charcoal Sketch 

Look at the fireman cleaning the grates, 
With rapid pulls and pushes of the long iron 
rod breaking up the clinkers in the 
boiler-furnace: 
The great line of his body formed thus — 
Starting at the left foot, planted forward, 
Sweeping upward through the leg. 
Crescent-curving along the shadowed furrow 

of his spine. 
Extended forward in his left arm, pushing 

the tool; 
This last line echoed in the right elbow, the 
impending thrust shown in the upward 
and half-forward poise of the arm; 
The forward trend of the figure accentuated 
by the half-hidden head, in which the 
line of the back terminates and is 
joined to the line of the arms; 



68 



The whole reinforced, made stable, by the 

staunch brace of the right leg, its line 
moving rhythmically into that of the 
spine; 

And all these lines shown where light meets 
shadow on the curved surface of the 
body and the wrinkles of the grimy 
clothes. 

And all in grays and blacks — 

The smutty laborer, his face glowing, glistening 
with sweat before the open fire-box, 

The sooty boilers bulking high above, 

The coal heap with its myriad glittering facets 
behind, 

And all within the shadowy shed-like 
boiler-room. 



69 



En Route 

From Manhattan half-way across America 

speeding, 
Away from the lofty spectacle-city of the 

earth, 
Out of the rich historic Empire State, 
Across Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, southern 

Illinois, 
Over the vast wrinkled map swerving and 

roaring in haste, 
By day the autumn-colored Palisades, the 

lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan swiftly 

glimpsing. 
At night from my berth the blinking-eyed 

cities rushing through 
And passing enigmatic lights In the wilderness 

of dark, 
Chicago approaching — the sprawling 

lake-blown working- town — 
To your arms, my lover, where you lie in 

sickness! 



70 



And what Is the long trip worth 

Except you receive me with passionate kisses 

and tears on your cheek as I lay my 

face to yours ? 
And what is the return worth after the long 

departure 
Except, coming together again, we have 

learned to be closer than ever? 



71 



The Fourth Book 
from 




Number 2.^o of two hundred and 
eighty copies on Kelmscott hand- 
made paper, printed from type on 
a hand press at 14 West Washing- 
ton Street^ Chicago. Composition, 
lettering, and presswork by Will 
Ransom^ assisted by Edmond A. 
Hunty who also designed and cut 
the linoleum blocks for the jacket 
decoration. Binding by Anthony 
Faifer. Printing finished 
November 21 1^22, 



The Series of First Volumes 

No. /—OPEN SHUTTERS by Oliver Jenkins. 
245 copies on Whatman hand-made paper. 
Published March 2y ig22. 

No. 2 — STAR POLLEN by Power Dal ton. 259 
copies on Italian hand-made paper. Pub- 
lished August 14 ig22. 

No. J— ORIOLES AND BLACKBIRDS by Hi 
Simons. 280 copies on Kelmscott hand- 
made paper. Published 'December 4 ig22. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

lilllillllllllli 

018 395 193 2 




